AD
by Starpenmusic
Summary: Wally is dead, at least that's what everyone keeps telling her. Artemis Crock is living day by day as the new and more violent Tigress trying to get over the loss of Wally. Meanwhile, the speedster himself is lost in the Speed Force with no way to return home. Told through the views of Artemis and Wally's memories, A.D. continues on where End Game left off. (Cover by Murmenator)
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One | Cease**

_He was nothing and yet through that he had become everything. In a simple state of being, Wally West had faded away and simply become the pure energy of speed. Time didn't matter, not in the Speed Force, but still Wally felt the fabric of reality slipping further and further away from him as he simply ceased. _

_At first he had been scared. The thought of Artemis alone and upset was enough for him to try and find some way back to her, but all efforts had soon turned out to be futile. In the Speed Force you just were. There was the strangest sensation as if he was running as fast as he had been in the moment he disappeared, yet he couldn't feel his feet or really any other part of his body. At this point, Wally wasn't even sure he had a body anymore. Still, he was not about to go down in history as a quitter. _

_During the beginning of his time in the Speed Force Wally remembered everything. He remembered the fierce look in Artemis' slanted eyes every time they fought and the sweet scent of her skin as lay beside him. After a while the memories became less clear. He suddenly couldn't remember if Artemis had gray eyes or blue or if she smelled of leather or pineapple. When he began to forget himself was when he truly felt fear. One day he was running along through nothing as Wally West, and the next he couldn't remember his uncle's name or who the hell Bart Allen was. It was the little things like losing his favorite color or favorite food that really weighed down on his spirit. _

_The only thing he clung to was her. During the bad stretches of time he couldn't remember her name or why he knew her, but he knew that he loved her more than he had ever loved anything. Feeling itself was alien, but the bright intensity he felt whenever he thought of her was enough to remind him that he had been something once and not this pure state of being. Wally West wasn't sure why he was eternally running or where he was going, but he sure as hell knew he had left something-someone- behind._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two | 6 Months A.D.

"The only difference between missing someone and loneliness is the words themselves."

- Madeline Lucci

Scarlet trickled off the window ledge, a steady dripping pattern that she timed her shallow breaths to. One plink onto the wood floor equaled two breaths and one sharp intake of breath every time the stab wound in her stomach ached, and it felt like hours since Artemis had collapsed onto the bed. Time really flies when you're sitting alone. Next to her, caked in red and crusted in dull blood lay a black mask, the new symbol that she had taken up for herself. It was strange to not work with a team, but the thought of others right now sounded even less preferable than the knife wound some petty thug had been kind enough to give her. For a moment, a smile played on her chapped lips at how concerned he would have been if he was there, but then reality sank in and like a red hot iron over her heart she realized that he was gone and she was alone. There was only one thing on her mind then, as constant as the moon that shone in through the dirty glass of the window…

She really fucking missed him.

She missed everything about him. The way he stroked her hair, the way his hands would tap at an incredible super pace until she wasn't sure if she wanted to kiss him or hit him to make him stop. Mostly, she just missed the fact that without him she wasn't alone. Artemis Crock had grown up by herself, a little girl sitting by a window wondering when her mother was coming home and why her sister and only friend had walked out. With Wally near, it was easy to forget her inner demons and just be in love. Now, she was all alone and unsure of if she hated him or loved him. Maybe she just hated him for leaving her.

Black gloved fingers dug into the white sheets of the bed as she slowly pulled herself into a sitting position, leaving a trail of bloody fingerprints in her wake. At their apartment in Palo Alto everything was exactly the way it had been when he left, right down to the pair of shoes sitting by the door and the science book left on the table despite the fact that she had told him a hundred times to put his dorky books away. It was like a museum to a life that she had lost, and it was all too painful to live there without breaking into tears every second. Finding a dilapidated and run down old apartment in Gotham had been a piece of cake, and in all honesty Artemis hadn't even tried to make it look like home. Home was where the heart is, and her heart had ceased right alongside the one person who understood her.

It took all too long for her to make her way into the cramped bathroom, and also too long for her to unclasp her Kevlar and find a way out of her costume without hurting her bruised ribs even more than they already were. Injuries littered her body like a map, every scar and cut plotting out a battle that she had fought. As melodramatic as it sounded, her biggest scar wasn't even visible. The water of the shower always took too long to come out at a decent pressure and then had bipolar tendencies to shift between scalding and freezing in an instant.

As the drops made their way down her lithe body, it required a good deal of wincing and biting of the lip to stop from crying out as blood mingled with the water before making its way to the rusted drain. In the six months since her boyfriend had disappeared, Artemis had learned that the shower was the best time to cry because the tears were indistinguishable from the water. She had never really been a big crier before but now that was something she did all too frequently. Life had been irreversibly split into two periods, Before Wally and After Wally. Living A.W. was something she had hoped to never do.

Sobs racked her body; lungs wailing in her chest as wave after wave of tears came gushing out. Artemis was drowning right there in her shower, the water and tears and sorrow so overpowering she couldn't help but stagger to the side. This was life A.W. and everyone told her that she needed to start moving on accepting his death, but she just couldn't fucking do it. She just couldn't fucking do it without him.

She didn't even want to try.


End file.
